


We were nothing like the rest

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:42:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Karen is pregnant by Matt but afraid of how he's going to react.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We were nothing like the rest

Karen starts feeling sick while they’re in New York, and it’s weirdly out of the blue. She and Matt and Arthur haven’t been going to any significantly sketchy places to eat. 

She also feels tired, way more tired than normal, which makes filming  _Angels_ a far more emotionally traumatic experience (and that’s saying something, because it was already going to be emotionally traumatic) and by the time they’re back in Cardiff doing  _The Power of Three_ she can barely survive between takes without running to the bathroom. 

It occurs to her that she might be pregnant when she’s sitting on a toilet at the studio waiting for the nausea to pass. The thought shocks her, but is not altogether impossible, because she finds it practically impossible to take the pill at a regular time with their shooting schedule, but she’s usually smart enough to use something else protection-wise. 

Then it occurs to her - since breaking up with Patrick, she hasn’t been having a lot of sex. And really, the only time it’s happened has been… 

Oh. Almeria. With Matt. 

_Shit._

* * *

That night, she stops at Boots on her way back to her flat (which is ninety-eight percent boxed up for the impending move). She drinks four glasses of water, does the whole pee-on-the-stick thing, and then waits. 

She tries her best to convince herself that the first test is a false positive, but she does two more and then she’s fairly convinced that yes, she, Karen Sheila Gillan, is indeed pregnant. She has to sit on the cold, tiled bathroom floor and cry for a little while. 

It’s not that she doesn’t want to be a mum, but the timing is bad, because of all the things that she’s got lined up, and she can’t possibly imagine doing all of that with a kid. And then there’s the issue of Matt, who she loves dearly, and has had romantic thoughts about, but how would he react to an unplanned pregnancy? 

He’d be a great father, she has no doubt, and perhaps she really ought to have more faith in him, but faith is not something she has a surfeit of at the moment. 

She sleeps on it that night, and when she wakes up in the morning she’s made her choice - she’s going to terminate the pregnancy. 

And she isn’t going to tell Matt about it.

* * *

It’s not a procedure she could get in Britain without doing a certain amount of lying to her GP and another doctor, and she doesn’t feel comfortable with that. Karen’s already got a house-hunting trip to Los Angeles planned for the beginning of May, because she’s going there later in the summer anyways, so it’s simply an addendum on to an already-scheduled trip. 

The ease of getting the procedure done surprises her, and though it feels weird to pay a significant amount of money for a medical procedure. As she lies in her hotel room later that evening, she feels guilt not for terminating the pregnancy, but rather for not telling Matt about the whole thing.

It’s mostly to do about how scared she is about how he’d react. She doesn’t know how he feels about children, or abortion, but there’s something ticking away in her mind that tells her,  _it was his too, you probably could have let him know_.  _  
_

There are a lot of things left unresolved from that evening, mostly because she got up and left his hotel room when she woke up long before he did, and it’s not as though she doesn’t have feelings for him, she really, really does, but this significantly complicates things.

She rolls on to her side and tries to fall asleep. 

* * *

Karen films her movie in the summer, and she really has fun and it helps her take the mind off everything. She does not call Matt or get in touch with him at all the whole time. 

They enjoy a cordial reunion at the series 7 premiere in London, and have a pretty good time together hanging around in New York. She feels weird around him, though, because the events of the past few months have placed a block in front of interacting with Matt. 

She kisses him goodbye chastely at the airport, and goes off to start her new life. 

After the whole Nerdist interview thing, where he states true facts because she hasn’t really been calling him, because she feels guilty about not being able to say anything to Matt about what happened. 

She skype-messages him after the interview is done. 

_Hey, I hope I can come visit you in Detroit when you come here this summer._

He messages her back a couple hours later. 

_You aren’t, because that will deprive me of the chance to come to LA._

She sets that as her date to tell him. 

* * *

Her condo has a wonderful patio, and Karen and Matt sit and look out at the Los Angeles skyline. 

“‘S a lovely place, Kaz,” he says. 

She nods. Her heart is in her throat. “Thanks. It’s great that you could come down.” 

“I’ve missed you so much, Kazza.” He looks at her. “When are you coming home.” 

She shrugs. She inhales deeply, and says, “Matt, there’s something that I need to tell you.” 

“Fire away, Kaz.” 

“D’you remember Almeria?” 

He wiggles his eyebrows a tad suggestively. “Oh, I do. But a bunch happened on that trip, so you’re going to have to jog my memory.” 

She smiles, just a little, because he’s trying to lighten the atmosphere, which has very suddenly taken quite a dark turn. “I’m asking if you remembered what happened between us, Matt.” 

He nods. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s kind of burned in to my brain despite all the sangria. I just might have wished that you were still there in morning.” 

“Before I say what I’m about to say,” Karen says, a bit cautiously, “please know that I didn’t regret that, and we can talk about that later. But there’s something else I need to tell you.” She gulps, and he’s looking at her expectantly, and, well, here goes nothing. “We… made a baby that night.” 

“Is this you trying to tell me that I have a child I don’t know about?” He looks incredulous. 

She shakes her head. “When I came here to look for houses after we were done filming in May, I had an abortion. I’m sorry, Matt. It was the right thing to do at the time, and I’m just sorry I didn’t tell you.” 

He doesn’t say anything for a long while, just cups his glass of wine in his hands and stares straight out over the horizon. After a long silence, he says, “I really wish you’d have told me, Kaz.” 

“I know, but I was freaked out…” 

He raises his hand, and she stops speaking. “I think that you made the right choice, Kaz, and it was your choice to make. If you’d told me, I would have gotten on that flight with you, just so that you didn’t have to handle this all by yourself.” 

“It’s been eating me up a bit, the guilt about not telling you.” 

“And that’s why you haven’t been calling.” 

She nods. 

“I have something that I need to tell you too, Kaz,” he says, and he doesn’t give her any indication that what she told him floored him in the least, and just says, “I love you.” 

“Me too, Matt.” 

He smiles and winds his fingers in hers. “So next time, please just tell when things are up, okay?” 

She nods. They’ll be fine, she’s just got a feeling.


End file.
